


Periphery

by floweringjudas (manipulant)



Category: Secret History - Donna Tartt
Genre: Drunkenness, M/M, post-Bunny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-12
Updated: 2012-03-12
Packaged: 2017-11-01 20:25:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/360894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manipulant/pseuds/floweringjudas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Yes. …Well,” he amended, “as fine as it’s possible to be, given the circumstances.” His toes curled into the sheet, and I found myself staring at them dumbly, knocked off-balance when he spoke again, his voice higher than it normally was; tremulous, childish. “Do you suppose it hurt at all?”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Periphery

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in 2004, for a [Contrelamontre](http://contrelamontre.livejournal.com) challenge.

That evening after ten grueling minutes of stilted conversation and an apology she didn’t deserve, I left Judy Poovey’s room with a half-Percocet nestled snugly in my pocket. Upon reaching my room I placed it on the desk and drew up a chair, studying it intently, a hand of poker with two cards a secret. In the corner near the window, the heater shuddered and groaned against the snow still falling outside; and I thought briefly of Bunny, a few miles away and waiting quietly, as I reached over and swallowed the bitter pill down.

Some hours later I woke and stared at the sloped-ceiling wall on the other side of the room. The house had settled into quiet, and my eyes fell to the bare window. Still snowing; the cover of clouds and the flakes refracted an unseen moon’s light and held it. The bare pecan tree sketched its limbs against the white, throwing an odd grey shadow onto the ground.

I had nearly closed my eyes again when a darker shadow made me sit up, draw close to the window. A spot of black on the grey outside; I recognized the particular billow of its coat, and opened the window with some effort. The half-Perc was still making itself known; my tongue felt heavy and thick in my mouth. The radiator and I both hissed at the sudden cold in the room as the window gave, and I called out hoarsely “Francis!” to the figure below.

As I went to the front door to let him in, I did wonder, fleetingly, if this was to be a repeat of last night’s strangeness. The hour, however, implied drunkenness, and I was proven right as I unlatched the front door and caught him awkwardly as he stumbled into the corridor. “Jesus, Francis,” I began, then looked down. “…What did you do with your shoes?”

 

He lounged idly on the bed, stirring the cup of tea he bade me make once his teeth had stopped chattering. His socks were draped carefully over the radiator, and the room had taken on a surreal fish-eyed quality as I watched him, watched him shift uncomfortably in the spare dressing robe, watched his red fingers shake as he delicately handled the cup. His feet were an alarming shade of near-purple, but when I asked, Francis said I’d made sure only ten minutes before that they weren’t completely numb and they were beginning to hurt like hell so for the love of God stop bothering him about them and just let him think.

He said he’d come from Charles and Camilla’s, but hadn’t offered any other explanation. I didn’t like to ask for one.

A silence drew out long and languorous between us; the hum and clang of the radiator magnified inside my ears, made my brain that much fuzzier. Francis was staring over the rims of his pince-nez and over my shoulder, at the snow still falling outside. _Has he thought about Bunny too?_ I wondered, and amended that thought a moment later to include Charles, Camilla, Henry. For not the first time, I felt a sudden chill sweep of loneliness, isolation in our shared sin.

“Pea soup,” Francis said thickly, and made a half-hearted sweep of one hand toward the window. Both of us smiled in relief – it was the sort of thing Bunny would have said. He exhaled, long and slow, and drew his knees up. “Are you all right?” he asked, blinking rapidly.

A short shrug. “Are _you_?” Obviously not, yet:

“Yes. …Well,” he amended, “as fine as it’s possible to be, given the circumstances.” His toes curled into the sheet, and I found myself staring at them dumbly, knocked off-balance when he spoke again, his voice higher than it normally was; tremulous, childish. “Do you suppose it hurt at all?”

The rational part of me immediately formed a response, _Yes, how can one fall 90 feet without impact hurting, I’m sure there was a crunch and blossom of pain_ , but Francis looked so young perched there, so terrified at the possibility of causing someone else pain (though he hadn’t seemed to mind, none of us had seemed to mind, deliberately provoking death) that I couldn’t say the words. Instead, “I don’t think he felt anything.”

Francis nodded and bit his lip, pressing his forehead to his knees. As I watched him, I felt a small ache of annoyance behind my eyes – hadn’t all of us had our private grapples with conscience? I suddenly realized that Charles or Camilla had thrown Francis out because of his need to overanalyze what had happened, just as he overanalyzed everything else. Nothing could fade that way; we’d be shoeless and laced with Percocet our entire lives.

His soft shudder filled the room, and it was then I noticed that Francis was crying.

The events of the past 48 hours had acquainted me with the sensation of my body moving independent of my mind, but it was still a shock to me when, two minutes later, I’d slid behind him on the bed, stretched both of us out. Francis was shuddering, leaning against my chest, and I had a sudden bizarre thought that I’d felt him like this before, and wasn’t context an interesting thing? His eyelashes were wet against my neck, his breath condensing on my neck, and I was rubbing his back the same way my mother ( _my mother - did I have parents? Did a world outside Hampden actually exist?_ ) would rub mine.

Lips mouthed against my collarbone worryingly for a few seconds, then he seemed to settle, drawing up, a parenthetical mark against me. Both sets of our eyelids heavy, I stared at him hazily – vague outlines of red and wire rims against pale skin – and then, because the universe required it, it seemed, I ducked down and kissed his cheek.

He sighed, resignation in the undertone instead of fear, which I took as a good sign. “’Night, Richard,” he said, and it was the only time I’d ever hear him sound grateful. “’Night, Francis,” I yawned. I think I fell asleep before he did, drifting gradually into unconsciousness as I watched outside the window as the snow continued to fall, inexorably, down.


End file.
